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The Little Milkmaid by Boucher, 1769

Friday, May 21st 2021

by Cabinet Turquin

The milkmaid’s dreamy look and the conspicuous stones on which she’s about to stumble leave no doubt about the fact that this painting is a depiction of La Fontaine’s 1678 Fable The Milkmaid and her Pail (Book 7, Fable 10).

This painting was replicated and its motif woven into tapestry by the Gobelins Manufactory as early as 1773. In July 1777, the Mercure de France gazette wrote that Mr. Cozette father and son presented several tapestries to King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette, among which two small weavings "one representing The Little Milkmaid after a painting by Boucher; & the other the Little Sulky Boy, after a painting by Greuze".

Our painting was made by the great François Boucher during his final active year, the same year when he also painted a set of six large canvases for the Bergeret de Frouville mansion that is nowadays split between the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, CA (Venus on the Waves, Aurora and Cephalus) and the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth, TX (Boreas Abducting Oreithyia, Juno Asking Aeolus to Release the Winds, Venus at Vulcan’s Forge, Mercury Confiding the Infant Bacchus to the Nymphs of Nysa).

Our most heartfelt thanks go to Mr. Alastair Laing for his help identifying this painting, which he considers as the original version of another Milkmaid painting that was part of the Champalimaud Collection (Christie's, London, July 6-7, 2005, lot 38 – see Ananoff, 1976, p.304-306, nr 679, fig. 1772).
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